Can you say "Holy Crap!"... ?

S

Shaw

Sooo...

We're all familiar with the revolutionary Panasonic DVX. It's argueably the best "prosumer" standard definition camera ever created. Well.... Panasonic has some news for us. At NAB, I believe, Panasonic will be releasing the specs of their new prosumer HD camera in response the Sony's HDV cam named the HDX100. The following is information that has been confirmed by Jan Crittenden

-Format: DVCproHD, DVCpro50, DVCpro25!
-Data Storage: P2 solid state memory
-Under 10K
-24p!

Her exact words:

" Sorry for not being able to say more guys, I am under lock-down on the subject. I can only say under $10,000, DVCPRO25/50/HD on P2, 24P. "

Things which have been hinted at by those "in power"

- The camera will be priced competitively with the Sony Z1
- The camera will be about the size of the DVX
- May have both tape and P2 recording capabilites
- 1080x720 resolution, possibly with 60p
- Most undoubtably native 16:9

What's so great about this? 6K is a lot of money after all. Well.... to quote Barry Green's most excellent post on DVXuser:

Which is best? Hands-down, by far, no question, DVCPRO-HD is a much better format than HDV.

I have an article in this month's Studio magazine that outlines the differences between the two, but I'll sum it up like this (which only adds to Loki's excellent response):

In 1080i, HDV is 25-megabit data. DVCPRO-HD is 4 times the bandwidth, at 100 megabits. In 720p, HDV is 19-megabits, DVCPRO-HD is 5 times the bandwidth, at 100 megabits.

HDV samples color using 4:2:0. DVCPRO-HD provides twice the color sampling, at 4:2:2, which provides better imagery and *much* superior chroma keying capability.

HDV uses MPEG-2 in picture groups of 15 frames. This means you get variable-resolution imagery depending on what's happening in the frame, how much detail is in the shot, whether the camera's moving, etc. If you had a very high-detail panning shot that happens to end on an I-frame, and then you locked into a stationary shot, MPEG-2 won't necessarily have enough "bit bandwidth" to resolve the new shot, so your footage would look low-res and "out of focus" for up to half a second. Whereas with DVCPRO-HD, each and every frame is encoded separately and completely (I-frame compression) so every frame will always look "right", will always be at full resolution, and you'll never have any half-second weirdness going on.

HDV uses two channels of compressed audio, compressed by a factor of 4:1. DVCPRO-HD uses EIGHT channels of UNCOMPRESSED audio, a huge advantage over HDV.

DVCPRO-HD has been out for over three years now. HDV is brand-new. DVCPRO-HD is natively supported by editing programs today, fully. Avid Express HD and Final Cut Pro-HD both use DVCPRO-HD as their native editing format. None of the major editors support HDV as a capture-edit-print-back-to-tape solution yet.

DVCPRO-HD can be used just like DV in editing, as a firewire preview from the timeline type of system. HDV could never do that, you won't see firewire previews from the timeline using HDV. It's a limitation of the GOP-based MPEG-2 compression.

Does HDV have any advantages over DVCPRO-HD? Well, a few, yes. First, it uses higher luma sampling: in 1080i, HDV records in a luma grid of 1440x1080, whereas DVCPRO-HD records about 10% fewer pixels, at 1280x1080. And in 720p mode, HDV records 1280x720, whereas DVCPRO-HD records 960x720. This is a lot less of an advantage than you'd think though, because DVCPRO-HD is recording twice as much color information, so overall the DVCPRO-HD pictures will look a lot more detailed than HDV pictures will. So as far as the pixel grid goes, the DVCPRO-HD format is recording fewer pixels in 4-5 times as much bandwidth, so compression artifacts should be *extremely* much less than on HDV. So HDV can brag about having a bigger overall pixel array, but as to which will look better? Can't answer definitively until I test the formats side-by-side, but I'd bet heavily on DVCPRO-HD.

Second, HDV can be recorded on $4 miniDV tape. I don't know that DVCPRO-HD can, but we'll see. Third, HDV data takes up 1/4 the space on a hard disk as compared to DVCPRO-HD data.

But Panasonic has never publicly ruled out HDV. They just haven't ever joined the coalition. It is my personal opinion that Panasonic doesn't see HDV as a professional format (because it isn't). I think they would be embarrassed to release an HDV camera to the professional market, and why should they? They've got three years of marketing DVCPRO-HD to pros, news stations, broadcasters, etc... they have a full line of equipment from a $6,000 (estimated) small camcorder to a $65,000 VariCam, plus decks and editing equipment, etc... HDV requires a new investment in all new hardware, whereas DVCPRO-HD already has a lot of infrastructure.

So here's where it gets funny -- what if Panasonic was to introduce BOTH? What if this new camera they're introducing records DVCPRO-HD to P2 memory cards, but records HDV onto the tape drive? Would that be the cat's meow or what? I don't know why I thought of this, but it'd be kind of like the DVX vs. PD170... you could buy a PD170, or you could get a DVX, which does basically everything the PD170 does, PLUS 24p. So you could buy a Z1, or you could buy an "HDX" which (if they add HDV to it too) would then do everything the Z1 does, PLUS 24p and DVCPRO-HD... man, that would totally be a knockout blow.

But, that's wild rampant speculation and rumor-mongering on my part. I know nothing about any Panasonic HDV plans. I don't expect that the new camera would have HDV, or they would have mentioned it. But it would be just too funny if it did.

I fully expect that if HDV meets with any sort of wide adoption in the consumer marketplace (i.e., $399 HDV cameras at Best Buy or Circuit City) then Panasonic will play in that game. Why wouldn't they? But I really don't ever expect to see a $399 DVCPRO-HD camcorder, and I don't expect home users to go investing in DVCPRO-HD gear. That seems targeted towards professionals/prosumers.
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From: url removed, sorry Shaw can't post links to other forums about filmmaking - Wideshot
Mods, I hope the link is ok. Feel free to remove it if not.


Soooo... the point being?

HDV will most likely end up like many other Sony formats - dead.

(I do realize that this isn't only Sony who espouses HDV but Sony is perhaps the major player for the format)

Prepare for the future of indie cinema! Now we'll be able to get some decent film blowups!
 
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- 1080x720 resolution ?

There are an awful lot of downsides to working with DVCPro-HD namely the system specs to store and work with it in native form.

It is more professional of a format, though I don't like the idea of buying cards, and it will require 16GB cards at a minimum, which won't be out till 2006 at least.
 
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- 1080x720 resolution ?
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Crap, my bad. That should be 1280x720 I believe.

Quite right about the system specs. It's certainly a more demanding format but very much worth it if you are going to be going HD and shooting important things in my opinion. HDV does have its place of course. 25mbs is just like DV of course so no problems there! The only problem is that you have to uncompress the footage before working with it otherwise you get horrible degredation which sort of negates part of its advantage.

There are rumors that Panasonic will have both tape recording and P2 recording so this shouldn't be a problem. There is also a rumor of a HD which would plug into the P2 connector and provide plenty of space for long recording.
 
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Its weird but on my monitor the res is 1280x756 whether its in VGA or RF/TV mode or even the Component mode.

But my camera is 1280x720. My TV doesnt have the smart mode on it so it doesnt adjust the difference in the virtical stretch and i still have small matted bars on top and bottom.

true HDV is 1440x and up to 2000x and not 1280. I was told thats EDV or EDTV and not HDTV.

I feel as if that is misadvertisment.
 
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HDV fits both of the HD specs. Your 720 camera is certainly HD! Interestingly Sony's 1080i camera is really 1440 which then is upressed in camera to 1880. The camera only has a true resolution of about 700 lines!

Anyway, the only real difference between the HD spec and HDV is the MPEG2 compression. Both sizes are true HD. EDTV is more along the lines of a standard definiton widescreen TV I believe.
 
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There is a resolution test chart on another forum that proves the FX1 resolves at least 1000 lines of horizontal res. I will give you the link if you PM me. Where do you get your info?

Also I would figure you would understand this, as we just got done talking about it in the 35mm adapter thread, but the camera's res is 1440x1080, then in post the pixel aspect ratio is set to 1.3333 so = 1920x1080. That is true HD.

The cineform codec manages the HD quite capably, however there are people who still edit in the native m2t.

720p is an HD variant, the Varicam is 720p.
 
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I don't trust MPEG2 for anything but final output, for technical reasons, consumer level DVCPRO HD will be a very nice thing, especially for all us Final Cut HD users!!! HD over Firewire, oh yeah.
 
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I had a thought and I may be crazy, but it's just a thought. I wonder if this is announcement was timed to screw Sony in that, the FX-1 is the hot to get camera right now, but with something better looming on the horizon, Panasonic will have people waiting to get this new camera, thus diminishing FX-1 sales. This HDX camera is a year or more away. Anyway, just a thought.

Scott
 
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I had a thought and I may be crazy, but it's just a thought. I wonder if this is announcement was timed to screw Sony in that, the FX-1 is the hot to get camera right now, but with something better looming on the horizon, Panasonic will have people waiting to get this new camera, thus diminishing FX-1 sales. This HDX camera is a year or more away. Anyway, just a thought.
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I don't think that's at all crazy. It's fairly obvious that both Sony and Panasonic are engaging in a major league turf war over HD. They both want to control HD TV pro camera production. Sony is going their normal AVID friendly, high spec build route, whilst Panasonic are gambling on declining production budgets pushing people into the DVCProHD/Final Cut Pro HD arena. It's too early to tell which way that turf war is going to go, but with more TV being produced on prosumer cameras then I've got to say my money is with Panasonic at the moment. It's the whole VHS/Betamax deal again, only this time in the pro market.
 
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I need advice on cheap soundgear. I spent 50 bucks for a preamp and a unidirectional mic and its like my video cameras mic on crack. it doesnt block out any noise and there is no adjustments like a shotgun mic for zooming on on anything.


the JVC doesnt have a hotshoe so what are my options for decent near studio quality sound? I use the gate feature to kill background in vegas but at times its like the audio is shorting out.

i dont want to add audio in post production on top of everything else if I dont have to.

input please.
 
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In this thread http://www.indietalk.com/showthread.php?t=5733 , We're kind of discussing low end shotguns like the ATR series. Within the next couple of days I'll be getting on of these under $100 shotguns and testing it in conjunction with my 16mm synch test.

I had bought a very cheap tiny shoeable mic that goes from tele to wide. When I tried it out on my viewcam before shooting TSP there was a slight hum noticable. On set there was a huge hum noticable and then my mic input died so I can't really tell whether it was the mic input on the viewcam or not, and I dont have the mic with me. Suffice to say a powered senn or audio tecnica or phantom powered should work better and not pickup noise like that cheapo I bought did. Obviously Ill let IT know my results in the other thread.
 
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